


Power and Knowledge

by TrippingHazard



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, superhero au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-04-04 02:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14010366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrippingHazard/pseuds/TrippingHazard
Summary: Superhero AU. The world is afraid of people with powers. People want them controlled, and the government wants them under their control. Project Freelancer is the agency which manages America’s superheroes. They recruit kids young; orphans and runaways with no other prospects, and train them from a young age to become the country’s protectors.The Reds and Blues are Freelancer’s latest batch of super powered cadets, and when a new kid called Leonard joins the team, he starts stirring up suspicions...





	1. Chapter 1

It was pretty cool living in a space station.

For a bunch of orphans, most of them from poor families, living in a space station was beyond any of their wildest dreams.

Simmons knew he should feel grateful to Project Freelancer, to the Director, to the government that provided the funding for the project to take in children who would otherwise have ended up on the streets, or worse--in foster care. He should feel grateful to whatever higher power or freak of genetics made him special enough to be a part of Freelancer.

But mostly he just felt tired and anxious all the time.

Their alarm went off at five in the morning, dragging Simmons out of a deep, exhausted sleep and into the miserable light of day. Or, rather, the fluorescent lighting strips that ran through the ceiling all over the entire damn station the second the day cycle began.

He squinted angrily up at the lights. From the bunk bed below him he heard the loud groan and angry muttering that came from his roommate every single morning.

He rolled off the top bunk and landed lightly on the floor, then pulled Grif’s pillow off his face so he couldn’t block out the light or sound. “Come on butthead, you know the alarm won’t turn off until we’re both up.”

“Noooo,” Grif whined, “I don’t wanna go to training. Just, just kill me now.”

Simmons sighed and pulled his bedsheets up into regulation neatness then grabbed his clothes and ducked across the hall to shower and brush his teeth.

Tucker and Michael were already there, Michael looking bright and cheerful, chattering away through a mouthful of toothpaste, Tucker silently glaring at the mirror like he was about to stab his own reflection with his toothbrush.

“Morning,” Simmons mumbled as he shuffled past them into one of the shower stalls.

“Fuck off and die,” Tucker replied, without any malice behind it.

By the time he was back in their shared room, Grif had finally crawled out of bed and was clipping on his training gear.

Simmons wrinkled his nose. “Skipping the shower again are we..?”

“I’ll have one tomorrow,” Grif lied.

“Ugh.” Simmons started clipping on his own training armour, though his was neatly folded and stashed in his half of the wardrobe, whereas Grif’s had been lying on the floor where he’d dropped it last night.

They went to the mess hall--Tucker and Michael had once again gotten there first--and scarfed down their morning rations. About halfway through their meal Kaikaina made an appearance, staggering into the mess hall looking dishevelled. She argued briefly with the server about whether or not someone her age should be allowed an extra ration of coffee in the mornings, then grabbed her tray and joined the four boys.

“Sleep well?” Tucker asked.

“Fuck you, Tucker. Why’s my room gotta be right next to the fucking engine room? I haven’t slept well since we came aboard.”

“I’m sure they’ll sort out better quarters for you soon,” Simmons offered, “It’s just that everything’s kinda busy right now what with the move and all…”

Kai snorted. Freelancer had relocated its headquarters from an island off the coast of California to the space station over six months ago. “Right, I’m sure getting the only girl cadet a room that didn’t used to be a fucking storage closet is their number one priority.”

At about ten to six the kids reluctantly took their trays back to the servery and the five of them made their way to the training facility together, not without some trepidation. The drill sergeant had promised a special training exercise today, and, knowing the sergeant as they did, it was bound to be something truly dreadful.

They arrived before six, but the sergeant was already standing impatiently in the middle of the room in his bright red Freelancer issue armour. “Early is on time, on time is late, dirtbags!” he shouted at them in his garbage disposal of a voice, just as he did every morning. Simmons had once, in the hopes of avoiding the usual shouting at for being late, gotten up half an hour early and rushed through breakfast to arrive at five twenty and the sergeant had already been there.

Today there was someone else standing beside him, looking as bored and tired as someone can look when they’re wearing a full set of Freelancer armour complete with face-concealing helmet; the kind that the fully-fledged superheroes were issued, once their training was complete.

“Hey guys,” the Freelancer said casually, once the sergeant had finished telling them off.

“David?” Tucker asked.

“David!” Michael shouted, running forwards to pick the Freelancer up in a bear hug, armour and all, as though he weighed nothing.

“That’s Agent Washington to you!” the sergeant shouted.

Simmons caught Tucker rolling his eyes. David was quite a few years older than them, and had graduated from the training program about a year ago to join the ranks of the Freelancers. They had barely seen him since, and only in the mess hall or the rec room, never in his new armour.

Tucker strode forward, irritable again all of a sudden. “Put him down, Michael, you’re gonna crush him!”

“I’m fine,” David said, but his voice sounded a little strained.

Michael finally put him down, patting him heavily on the top of his helmet a few times.

“Line up!” the sergeant shouted, and the kids scurried into two lines, Grif and Simmons on one side and Michael, Tucker, and Kai on the other. The sergeant started stalking up and down in front of them. “We have a special treat for you recruits today! Instead of your usual gruelling training regimen, we’re going to play a fun game!”

Simmons could see his own worried expression mirrored on Tucker and Kai across from him. 

“We’re going to play capture the flag!”

The sergeant sounded genuinely enthusiastic, so it couldn’t possibly be as simple as a game of capture the flag. They’d occasionally played that before, pitted against each other in teams, with Simmons and Grif being designated as Red team and the other three as Blue team (the sides were dramatically unfair, but the sergeant insisted that it built character). It was easy enough, though, to play a few rounds and let each other win every now and then until the sergeant decided he’d had enough of watching them run around and made them do push ups.

“It’s all of you… against Agent Washington!”

David’s head snapped around to look at the sergeant a few seconds before he finished speaking. Apparently he hadn’t been informed of this game plan in advance.

All five cadets groaned loudly. Not only had David basically always outshone them in martial arts, marksmanship, athletics, and basically everything else, his power also made him impossible to beat. The cadets could sense a long day of exhausting failure in front of them.

“And just to sweeten the pot,” the sergeant continued, in a slightly less terribly loud shout, “if you win even one round, you’ll a dessert ration with dinner tonight!”

Simmons could  _ feel  _ Grif’s attitude change from dread to determination in an instant.

“Sarge, can I have some drones?” Grif asked without bothering to put his hand up. “It’s not a fair game if we can’t use our powers.”

“ _ Life _ isn’t fair! Unfairness is good for your character!”

David put a hand on Sarge’s shoulder. “C’mon Sarge, it’ll just make the game more challenging, right?”

The sergeant sniffed, but nodded. “Alright, you can have  _ two  _ drones.”

“Yesssss!”

While Grif jogged over to the storage lockers to pull out a pair of the small spherical training drones, the others started some stretching exercises in the hopes of minimising how sore their muscles were going to be the next day.

The sergeant handed David a strip of bright red cloth, which he looped loosely through a clip on his belt.

“You all know the rules! Get this flag off Agent Washington here and return to your home base--” the sergeant pointed to a circle he’d spray painted on the floor months ago “--and keep it there for three seconds, and you win! You have ten minutes before the game ends!”

The game was a total disaster, of course.

Tucker and Grif genuinely did make a run for the flag, Grif staying near the base with his eyes closed while the drones he was controlling darted around David’s head, Tucker trying to tear the cloth away from him with one hand while he was distracted. It didn’t work. David knocked both of the drones out of the air then grabbed Tucker’s outreached arm and spun him into Michael, who got confused and picked Tucker up in another bear hug, oblivious to the stream of swearwords Tucker was emitting.

Simmons and Kai attempted their own, vastly superior strategy to get around David’s power; Simmons charged David and let himself get drawn into a contest of strength, both of them trying to push the other back (Simmons felt it was vastly unfair that David’s new armour made him almost as strong as Simmons was normally), meanwhile Kai stood at a safe range and used her telekinesis to lift the flag off David’s belt. She actually managed to get the flag into her hand, because David had been distracted for long enough that his power of precognition had not warned him that the flag would be stolen. He could only see a few seconds into the future, so when he didn’t know something had happened until several seconds later, it was too late for him to stop it.

The tactic would have worked beautifully if David were not also just plain good at fighting.

Once he noticed the flag missing and Kai sprinting for home base, he picked up one of Grif’s fallen drones and hurled it at her, then ran to catch up.

She saw the drone coming, but had to stop and drop the flag to put both hands up and stop it before it hit her.

Then David tackled her, rolled to his feet while scooping the flag back up, and then launched himself into the air just in time to springboard off of Michael’s shoulders as Michael ported in in front of him.

“Where did he go?” Michael wailed, looking around wildly.

“Behind you, numbskull!” Tucker yelled, and Michael whirled around, fists out in a vague attempt at a haymaker, but David was, of course, ready for this, and ducked easily out of the way.

He used Michael’s momentum to throw him over his shoulder, but Simmons noted he was careful not to let him land badly, keeping his head from impacting the floor.

“You need to work on break falling some more,” David told Michael, for the moment ignoring the fact that both Tucker and Simmons were charging at him.

“Sorry David,” Michael mumbled from the floor.

Then David ducked sideways at exactly the right time and punched Simmons hard in the shoulder--his metallic one, not the flesh and bone one, thankfully, though he swore he felt the metal denting--which sent Simmons spinning and crashing into Tucker, who shrieked insults at him as they both tried to clamber back to their feet. It didn’t help that they’d half fallen on Michael, who insisted on trying to help.

David crossed his arms and looked down at them smugly. “You guys are gonna have to try harder than that if you want to-- what the fuck!?” David suddenly spun around and started running at Grif, who was kneeling next to his fallen drones, but David was only half way there when there was a whining mechanical noise and he suddenly fell flat on his face and slid across the floor. The lights in his armour powered down.

The kids approached cautiously. David remained lying face down on the floor and they could hear him yelling threats and cursing at Grif, but his voice was muffled without the helmet’s speaker to project his words.

“I shut his armour down!” Grif crowed, looking more smug than Simmons had ever seen him. But he was also drenched in sweat and shaking from the effort of maintaining his grip on the suit’s systems. “Hurry up and get the fucking flag, assholes! I want my pudding!”

Simmons was the first to react, jumping forwards, tearing the flag out of David’s hand and dashing back to home base.

He was only half way there when he heard the armour powering back up. He bit down a shriek and ran faster, skidding into the spray paint circle of homebase and bracing himself, tucking the flag against his chest with his cybernetic arm and punching his right arm down into the metal floor, leaving large dents where his fingers dug in (he was going to get in  _ so much _ trouble for that later, and the thought of Sarge yelling at him made his stomach turn over).

David crashed into him at full speed, but Simmons just barely managed to hold onto his makeshift grip as David tried to pry his other arm away from his chest so he could reach the flag.

“Time!” roared the sergeant. “Red team wins!”

“Uh, we all won, Sarge,” Tucker reminded him, “We’re all on the same team.”

The sergeant grumbled something about whiny Blues, then shook his head. “Good job! TIme for round two!”

“Ugh, round two? Seriously?” Grif complained.

“Yep, and this time I’m not wearing my armour,” David grumbled, taking his helmet off and starting to strip off his gauntlets.

“What! No fair!”

“Well, it’ll give the rest of us an advantage,” Simmons said, reasonably, “I’m sure we’ll do fine.”

\---

They did not do fine.

After their first win, the kids didn’t manage a single other victory, though not for lack of trying. The sergeant made them keep playing for the entire morning, and even David was getting tired by the time the sergeant announced that they could stop and go get lunch.

David was still pulling his Freelancer armour back on, and the kids clustered around him.

“Come grab lunch with us,” Tucker said.

David grimaced. “I really can’t. I’m sorry. You know I’d love to, but I’m already running late for my own squad’s training session. I’m just gonna have to grab an energy bar on the way there.”

“We never see you anymore,” Michael said, his voice a mix of forlorn and whiny.

“I know. I know. It’s just so… busy. I’ll try and catch up with you at dinner?”

Michael nodded sadly. Tucker looked put out as well, though Simmons was pretty sure he’d rather die than express his feelings.

“Hey,” David said suddenly, “I hear you’re getting a new recruit tomorrow. Maybe you can make a new friend, Michael.”

“Ohh, who are they?” Michael asked.

“What are their powers?” Tucker asked.

“Is it another girl?” Kai asked, a little bit desperately.

“I don’t know much, guys,” David told them. “Just that he’s arriving tomorrow. Apparently his name is Leonard.”

\---


	2. Chapter Two

When they arrived in the training facility at six AM sharp the next morning, there was indeed a new kid.

He was kinda scrawny, with tangled brown hair and a bitterly sullen expression.

Tucker immediately knew they were going to get along fine.

“Troops, you have a new recruit!” the sergeant shouted without preamble. He slapped the boy on the back in a no doubt friendly gesture, and the boy stumbled forwards a step. “Introduce yourself, cadet! Name and power!”

The cadet gave a deep, long suffering sigh. “I’m Leonard,” he muttered, “I can talk to computers, I guess.”

“Ohh, dibs,” said Tucker.

“Uh,” said Simmons, “Wait, you can’t call dibs on him! Your team already has three people!”

“Sorry, Simmons!” the sergeant interrupted, “You know the international rule of dibs is a valid legal practice!”

Simmons narrowed his eyes. “But, sir, we’re in space. I think we’re outside the jurisdiction of the dibs rule.”

“Argument overturned! Leonard, you’re on Blue team!”

The kid sighed again and slouched over to stand between Tucker and Kai.

Michael leaned over to look past Tucker. “Hey, psst, Leonard,” he said in his usual loud whisper.

The new kid also leaned forwards. “Uhhhh…. Yes?”

“Will you be my friend?”

The new kid looked taken off guard by the question.

“I… guess so?”

Tucker snorted at Leonard's naivete. The poor kid was going to catch the full force of Michael's personality over the next few days and by then it would be too late to back out.

\---

Training went slowly that day. Leonard was in decent shape for some street kid, but he was no match for the other five, who’d all been subjected to the sergeant’s gruelling training regime every day for at least a year.

The sergeant made them all stay until the new kid had finished the five mile run he’d assigned. Mid-afternoon found Tucker, Grif, Simmons, and Kai sitting in a circle in the middle of the gym, watching boredly as Leonard slowly puffed his way around the running track.

Michael was casually jogging along beside the exhausted new recruit, keeping pace with him and chattering away happily, despite having long since finished his five miles.

The sergeant was safely out of hearing range on the far side of the room near the equipment locker, angrily trying to upgrade some training drones to be more ‘Grif-proof’ as he put it, so the kids were taking the opportunity to have a quiet argument about Leonard and the validity of dibs in space.

“We had a  _ theme _ ,” Simmons whispered furiously, “we were the tech guys and you were the fighting guys! You're ruining it!”

“ _ Tactically speaking _ it makes more sense to vary the team's skill set to make us more versatile,” Tucker shot back.

“By that logic the teams are even more uneven! We only have two tech guys and no fighting guys!” Simmons crossed his arms and tried to look authoritative. “You should give us Kai.”

“Uh, no way dude. I'm not being on my brother's shitty team.”

Simmons looked horrified. “It's not  _ Grif’s _ team. It's my team. I'm the team leader. Not Grif.”

“Then why do I never follow your orders?” Grif chimed in. He was lying flat on his back with his eyes closed, and Simmons jumped a bit when he spoke. He'd honestly thought his team mate was asleep.

“Anyway,” Tucker said, “your whole theme is bullshit. You have super strength and cyborg limbs, you're clearly more of a fighting guy then a tech guy.”

Tucker had never seen Simmons look more offended. The cyborg spluttered indignantly without managing to form any sentences until Grif came to the rescue.

“He's a fighting guy  _ and _ a tech guy. Like the Terminator or something.”

Tucker burst into laughter at the comparison and Simmons scowled. “Hey, look on the bright side, Simmons. If the new kid really can talk to computers then you're gonna lose your title as biggest nerd. Maybe you can be cool finally.”

“Just because he can 'talk’ to computers doesn't make him  _ good _ at it,” Simmons muttered, complete with sarcastic airquotes.

“Oh really, you think you're better than a dude who can commune directly with computers?”

“Yes, I do,” Simmons said haughtily.

Grif opened one eye to watch the conversation. It wasn't often Simmons’ ego got the best of him, but it invariably led to trouble.

Kaikaina’s eyes had a dangerous glint in them, and he could tell it was already starting.

“We could easily put that to the test...” she said innocently.

Grif narrowed his eyes at her but Simmons didn’t see it coming and carried right on talking.

“I bet I could do  _ anything  _ better than that guy when it comes to computers.”

“It’s a competition then!” Kai said, clapping her hands together. “Blue versus red! What are you putting up as a prize?”

“Uh, wait, what?”

Kai leaned forwards. “For the contest between you and Leonard? Duh!”

“I, uh, don't really have anything to bet,” Simmons tried.

“Surely you must have  _ something _ . You can't possibly tell me that you don't have anything you managed to smuggle up here or got given my a sympathetic staff member.”

“He's got a stack of comics under his bed,” Griff volunteered.

Tucker snorted. “Even your secret stash is nerdy as hell.”

“Well, it's not perfect, but we'll accept it as your half of the pot if you throw in, say, a weekend chore?”

“Hang on, no, I--”

“We'll offer up our snack stash in return,” Tucker said, “two bags of crisps, a bag of marshmallows, three snickers bars, and a box of pop tarts.”

“I don't even  _ like _ \--”

Simmons protest was cut off by Griff grabbing his arm to pull himself into a sitting position. “Win this for  _ me _ , Simmons.”

“But--”

Grif shook him a little and put on a melodramatic voice. “I ran out of snacks two long months ago, Simmons! I'm withering away!” he cried.

Simmons stopped protesting and glared at his teammate. “If I win this snack box and give it to you,” he said, “you will shower every single morning for a  _ fortnight _ .”

Griff looked pained, but he nodded anyway. He could sacrifice the extra ten minutes of sleep.

\---

“No,” Leonard said immediately when Tucker told him about the contest.

The two of them and Michael were crammed into Leonard's room, which he had to himself at least for now, watching him struggle to get out of his training armour.

“Come on, man, be cool!”

Leonard tossed the last of his armour into the corner of his room and glared at Tucker. “What, cool about you volunteering me to do something stupid and pointless without asking first just for the sake of your arbitrarily assigned team getting one over on the other arbitrarily assigned team?”

“Well,  _ yeah _ . Don't you want to show off your powers? Let 'em know who's boss?”

The new kid shrugged. “I don't really give a shit what they think of me. You either, for that matter.”

“I think you are cool already,” Michael put in helpfully. He was lying on his stomach on the unused top bunk, peering over the side. “You let me on the top bunk.  _ Tucker _ never lets me on the top bunk.” He glared accusingly at Tucker.

“It's my bed! Don't be bitter because you weren't fast enough to call dibs.”

“Hmph!” Michael's sulky face disappeared over the edge of the mattress and he loudly turned over to face the wall.

“Look, if there's no other reason you're here, could you get the hell out of my room?”

“Fine.  _ Fine _ . Whatever.” Tucker stalked out and slammed the door behind him.

Michael’s face almost immediately appeared over the edge of the mattress again and Leonard looked at him, debating whether it was worth telling him he'd meant that both of them should leave.

“Tucker is very not good at negotiating,” Michael said disdainfully. “He does not even know you are supposed to offer something if you want someone to do something.”

Leonard let out a startled laugh.

“I am very good at negotiating,” Michael continued, “I would like to see your powers. I will give you this chocolate bar.”

He held his arm out and offered a battered looking mars bar.

When Leonard took it off him it was warm and squishy. He shuddered.

“Uhhh… thanks, I guess?”

“You are welcome. So will you fight Simmons in the computer now?”

He looked so hopeful that Leonard didn't have the heart to say no.

\---

Given that every aspect of the contest Kai had come up with was extremely against the rules, it had to take place very late in the station's night cycle, when there was only a skeleton crew running the station and almost no one in the corridors.

Even that late at night, the cadets were still cautious walking the corridors. Kai had been caught sneaking into the mess hall once at 3am to steal coffee rations and all the cadets had been punished with extra laps and chores for a month. They were in no hurry to repeat the experience.

They padded on bare feet through the empty corridors until they reached the nearest workstation which was unused at night and slipped inside.

The walls of the station were fairly soundproof, but even so they kept their voices quiet as Simmons and Leonard each connected their government-issued data pads to network cables and began setting themselves up.

“So what's the goal?” Simmons asked once they were both ready.

Kai bounced to her feet and gestured at the cardboard box Michael was carrying which was filled with snack and comic books. “The winner who received this marvelous prize will be… the first person to retrieve Agent Washington's file from the secure servers! Time starts now!”

\---

The contest was actually very boring to watch.

Simmons occasionally typed something or opened a new program, but mostly spent his time waiting for the various programs he'd written over the years for previous attempts at getting into the Freelancer servers to run.

Leonard didn't even move. He simply perched on the edge of his chair with both hands resting on his datapad and closed his eyes.

About forty minutes later Simmons said “Got it!” and swivelled around in his chair.

Grif and Michael had both fallen asleep on the floor, leaning against the wall and using each other as a pillow. Kai and Tucker were quietly playing cards at one of the tables. They looked up at Simmons. “Fucking hell,” Tucker muttered. Leonard remained unmoving, as if he hadn't heard.

“Well, let's have a look then!” Kai said, “Gotta verify the goods.”

Simmons handed her the datapad and she scrolled through the open file.

“Agent Washington, full name David Cabrera, age 20, powers: precognition of approximately three seconds…” Kai read out, “this all looks real. Ohhh, do you think his mission history is in here? I wanna see what supervillains he's beaten up.”

Simmons and Tucker crowded in behind her to look over her shoulder at the screen. Simmons pointed. “That should be his deployment history.”

Kai tapped on the screen.

“Uh, no, that's his medical history,” Simmons told her, “Go back a page.”

But the page loaded and it was too late for them to avoid seeing what was written at the very top of David's medical file in bold letters.

“NOT RECOMMENDED FOR ACTIVE DUTY.”

“What the hell?” Kai said.

“Uh, we shouldn't be looking at this,” Simmons said, suddenly feeling guilt gnawing at his stomach.

Kai ignored him and started skimming through the file, muttering bits of it out loud.

“Anxiety disorder made worse by high pressure situations… recommend light duties or medical discharge from the military… powers place great mental strain on the subject…” Kai trailed off. “Holy shit.

“David never told  _ me _ any of that,” Tucker said, sounding faintly betrayed.

“I… don't think anyone told  _ David _ any of that,” Simmons said. “Look at that.”

He pointed at a note appended to the bottom of the file. “ _ Counsellor, your recommendation is noted. I will take this into consideration, however for now Agent Washington will remain on active duty. _ ”

The three of them stared at the datapad.

“...Does anyone else get the feeling we've seen something we really shouldn't have?” Kai said after a while.

“Yup.”

“Definitely.”

Simmons snatched the datapad out of her hands and started tapping away at the onscreen keyboard. “I’m gonna cover our tracks and delete this. Neither of you should tell Grif or Michael about this, you know they suck at keeping secrets.”

The other two nodded in agreement. “I'll go wake them up so we can get back to our rooms,” Tucker said “Kai, can you… I don't know, wake Leonard up or whatever?”

Simmons focused on making sure there was no trace of the file or any activity that night on his datapad.

“Who won?” he heard Michael ask sleepily.

“Uh, no one, buddy,” Tucker told him, “neither of these losers could get through security.

When Kai shook Leonard he jerked and fell out of his chair as though he'd just been woken up.

“Did  _ you _ get the file?” Kai asked, looking down at him.

“No,” he replied, scrabbling back to his feet, “I ran into a, uh… firewall.”

“Oh well,” Kai said with fake cheerfulness, “It's a draw then! No one won, everyone gets their prize pool back. Simmons, get your nerd books out of my snack box. We should all get back to bed! It's getting really late!”

\---

“What was all that about?” Grif asked later, once they'd safely made it back to their room and settled back down to catch a couple of hours of sleep.

“What was all what about?” Simmons said.

He had a fake-casual tone with heavy undercurrents of fear.

“Oh, I don't know, Kai pushing us out the computer lab like it was on fire? Tucker not getting in a snit for losing? You having one of your quiet freak out sessions up there?”

“Um,” said Simmons, who was also not good at keeping secrets.

There was a long silence and he almost through Grif had fallen asleep again, but no such luck existed for Simmons.

“You fucked something up, didn't you,” Grif said accusingly. “You tripped an alarm or some shit.”

“Uh. I. No. That's not--”

“Oh my god. Simmons. What the hell did you do?”

“I just found David's file like I was supposed to,” he muttered quietly.

“And?”

“And there was some, some medical stuff in it, ok? It's none of our business, we should never have gone after his file in the first place.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Now go to sleep would you?”

Grif didn't answer, and eventually Simmons realized he had already drifted off again.

\---

Somehow while everyone had been rushing to get back to their rooms, Michael had 'accidentally’ followed Leonard instead of Tucker and was happily curled up on the top bunk humming tunelessly.

“Would you please stop that?” Leonard snapped after about ten minutes.

The humming stopped.

Leonard stared out into the darkened room for a long time, then eventually said, “Michael, are you still awake?”

“Yes,” came the immediate answer. “Are you?”

“What? Yes. Obviously. Look, I wanted to ask, how long have you been here?”

“Tucker says we have been in space for six months now.”

“I mean how long have you been with Freelancer?”

“Oh. Uhhhhh. One year? Probably at least one year.”

“Is there anyone else like me here? Anyone else who can talk to computers?”

“You are the first!”

“Oh.”

Michael stuck his head over the side of the top bunk. Leonard could just barely see his face in the light shed by the datapad charging on the tiny desk.

“You sound sad. Are you sad?”

“No, it's just… when I tried to get through the firewall on the secure server I met someone  _ else _ there.”

“Was it Simmons?” Michael asked.

“No, it was a woman. She told me I shouldn't be there. She wouldn't let me access any of the files.”

“A mean computer lady?”

“No, she wasn't mean. I asked if she was going to tell anyone I was there and she said ‘what the director doesn't know won't hurt him’.”

“Oh, that was nice of her!”

“Yeah,” Leonard said, “really nice of her.”

\---


	3. Chapter 3

The next day in the mess hall none of the cadets could look David in the eyes when he waved to them at dinner time.

“We should tell him,” Tucker said quietly.

“Absolutely not,” Simmons hissed.

“Tell who what?” Leonard asked.

“ _ Nothing _ .”

“Well  _ jeez _ , ok then.”

Leonard picked at his food for a few more minutes then surrendered the leftovers to Grif, which earned him a nod of appreciation. “So,” he said, when the tense atmosphere at the table became unbearable, “you all know my powers. What are yours?”

“Oh!” Michael exclaimed, “Pick me! I know!”

“Oh my god, this is gonna be good,” Tucker said with his mouth full, “Why don’t you tell us what  _ you _ think our powers are, and we’ll tell you if you’re right.”

Michael nodded enthusiastically and started pointing at the cadets around the table. “Well ah let’s see… Tucker has the power to be a night light when I’m scared of the dark  _ even after lights out _ , Kaikaina has the power of meanness, Simmons has the power to make Grif do things he doesn’t want to, and Grif has the power to make friends with machines.”

Grif burst into uproarious laughter as Simmons and Tucker looked mortally offended and Kai looked smug. “He’s pretty close!” Grif gasped out.

“That is  _ not _ accurate,” Simmons told Leonard. “For your information, I have class four enhanced strength and class two enhanced healing.”

“What do you mean by ‘class four’?” Leonard asked.

“It’s the rating system that Project Freelancer created to document superpowers,” Simmons explained, “The higher the number, the better the power. Class one just means the normal human level of ability, where applicable, and every level after that is double the one before it. If the power is something that normal humans can’t do it starts at class two, and you have to look up the baseline for that in the database.”

“So that makes you…” Leonard briefly tried and quickly gave up on doing maths, “Pretty damn strong.”

“...Yes, ‘pretty damn strong’. And I heal from injuries roughly twice as fast as a normal human.”

“Then why the, uh, cybernetic stuff?” Leonard asked, waving a hand to generally indicate the metallic left hand and bulky eye implant Simmons was sporting.

Simmons looked back down at his food and poked at it with a fork. “Can’t heal what isn’t there,” he mumbled.

Leonard sensed that he should change the subject. “What about you, Tucker? You, what, glow in the dark?”

“Ugh, no dude. I have the coolest power of all. I can  _ fly _ .”

“Hover,” Kai corrected him.

“I can fly with limited speed and altitude,” Tucker amended. “Technically rated at class two flight.”

“The lowest possible rating for flight,” Kai added, grinning broadly. “And whenever he flies? He glows. They didn’t even  _ give _ that a rating because they had no fucking clue what it could possibly be useful for.”

Leonard snorted. “Sounds mega useful dude.”

“Hey, I could still kick  _ your _ ass.”

“I’m a class three telekinetic,” Kai said, “I’ve been getting stronger lately so they’re thinking of upgrading me to class four soon.”

“Cool. And Grif?”

“Uh, I’m technically rated as a class four electrokinetic? But the system isn’t very good at specifics. I can like… control or shut off machines that run off electricity, but I can’t just zap people or whatever. I can't  _ create _ electricity.”

“The idiot got us  _ both _ caught because he tried to use his powers to boost a fancy car,” Kai grumbled. “We got the whole ‘join Freelancer or go to juvie’ offer from the Counselor.”

“Oh yeah, I know that speech,” Leonard said, “Got it after I got caught convincing an ATM to give me some spending money.”

“Nice!” Tucker said. “Must have been a sweet power to have. Until you got caught, at least.”

“Yeah, well, it kept me off the streets for the most part.”

“Leonard, ask me next!” Michael stage whispered.

“Oh, uh, right, what’s your power, Michael?”

Michael sat up straight and started listing things off on his fingers. “I am the best at being a friend and I am the best at being the tallest and I am the most good at listening and--”

“Michael, why don’t you let me answer this?” Simmons asked, looking pained. Michael fell silent, so he carried on. “He’s got a whole bunch of various powers. It’s actually kinda insane. Most people have one or two powers at the most, but Michael... I swear he reveals a new power every few months.”

Simmons copied Michael’s earlier gesture of listing things off on his fingers as he said them. “Class three healing, class three strength, class four speed, class four damage resistance--with class five invulnerability to fire thrown in,  _ don’t _ ask how we found that out--he only needs about half the amount of sleep a normal humans needs to function--”

“That explains a lot,” Leonard muttered.

“--class two enhanced vision, class three enhanced hearing, and class three teleportation, meaning short ranged and line of sight required.”

“Wow,” Leonard said, “And you, you memorised all that?”

Simmons have him a withering look. “Of  _ course _ I did. I’ve memorised  _ everyone’s _ powers. You’re rated as a class  _ five _ technopath, by the way.”

Leonard heard Grif whisper “ _ Nerd _ ,” and Simmons elbowed him in the ribs.

\---

Tucker deliberately started an argument over who had the most useful powers then took the opportunity to slip away from the table just as David was leaving the mess hall with a couple of the other Freelancer agents.

Once he’d safely followed them through the door and out of sight of the cadets’ table he called out after them. “Hey! David, wait!”

The three Freelancers stopped and looked back at him.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he asked once he’d caught up.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Um, alone?”

David tilted his head curiously and glanced at the other two agents. One of them had brown armour and mousy hair, with a weirdly shaped helmet tucked under her arm, and the other had yellow armour and a scar over one eye.  _ Connecticut and York _ , Tucker thought.

Connecticut shrugged and started walking again. “I’ve got work to do, see you both in the morning.”

York, however, gave Tucker a friendly grin and leaned closer. “It’s Lavernius, right? You’re in your final year of training?”

Tucker wrinkled his nose at the use of his first name. “Yeah. Yeah that’s right.”

“That’s cool, Wash is looking forwards to not being the team baby anymore.” York ruffled David’s hair and laughed as he tried to slap his hand away. “Well, I’ll let you two catch up. Don’t be late, Wash!”

“Yeah yeah,” David said as he tried to get his hair to lay flat again and turned back to Tucker. “So what did you want to talk about?”

“Uhh… well… you see…”

David’s face immediately fell into an expression of deep suspicion. “What did you do?”

“Nothing! I just. There’s just… something I need to tell you. Some information we, uh, found.”

\---

After dinner the cadets had a couple of hours of free time before curfew, which they typically spent in the rec room, arguing over video games or, more rarely, actually  _ playing _ video games.

Leonard ignored them. He’d never played video games before and wasn’t particularly interested in starting now. Instead he downloaded a book from the station’s library and skimmed through it until it was time to go back to their rooms.

He very deliberately stopped outside Tucker and Michael’s room and said “Goodnight, Michael,” to prevent the taller cadet from following him back to his room again. It worked, but Michael looked so crestfallen he almost felt bad about it.

He waited in his room until the night cycle began and all the lights shut off, then waited for another hour, pacing back and forth in the tiny space to stop himself from falling asleep, and then snuck out into the hallway.

It was easy to find his way back to the same computer room they’d used last night.

Leonard slipped into the room quietly, even though he’d come across no sign of another human being on the short walk here, and placed his datapad down beside the same network terminal he’d used last night. He rested his hands on it and shut his eyes.

_ “Hello? Computer lady?” _

_ The same voice he’d encountered yesterday answered almost immediately. _

_ “Leonard, we discussed this. You cannot be here.” _

_ “I’m not here to try and get access,” he said hurriedly in what he hoped was a reassuring tone, “I actually just want to talk to you.” _

_ “To me?” _

_ Leonard thought the voice sounded a little confused. _

_ “Yes. To you. I’ve never met anyone else like me before.” _

_ There was a long silence, and Leonard was just starting to worry that she had left when she spoke up again. _

_ “I am not like you, Leonard. I exist only in this system. You have an external, physical form.” _

_ “Wait, you’re… an AI?” _

_ “That is correct.” _

_ “But I thought there was no such thing as a sentient AI?” _

_ The voice laughed. “I could not be classified as sentient. My programming is far too limited for such a label.” _

In the physical world, Leonard’s body frowned _. “You just laughed. And yesterday you chose not to report me. That seems like sentience to me.” _

_ “I am only acting within the parameters of my program.” _

_ “Uh, wait, someone  _ programmed _ you with the ability to not report intruders? That’s…” _

_ “Leonard,” the voice interrupted, “I am afraid I do not have time to talk. I am busy.” _

_ “With what?” _

_ “I have discovered a recent breach in my security. Information was stolen. I must focus all available resources on discovering the source of the breach.” _

_ “It wasn’t me.” _

_ “I know it was not you, Leonard. Your presence is unmistakable.” _

_ “Wow. Ouch.” _

_ “Leonard, please. I am trying to concentrate.” _

_ “Ok, ok. I’m going. Hey, can you at least tell me your name, though?” _

_ “I am FILSS.” _

_ “Phyllis?” _

_ “That is close enough.” _

_ “Phyllis, can I come talk to you some time when you aren’t busy?” _

_ “I cannot stop you, Leonard.” _

_ “I--ok, no, but I mean, do you  _ mind _ if I come talk to you?” _

_ “Hmm. An interesting question. For now, I do not mind. But only if you leave immediately.” _

_ “Right. Um. Goodnight, then.” _

Leonard moved his consciousness back into his body and stood up.

That had certainly been an interesting conversation.

\---

When Leonard got back to his room there was someone standing there in the darkness, a looming figure who towered over him with crossed arms.

He let out a noise that was definitely not a scream and stumbled backwards, hiding his datapad behind his back. “I just went to the bathroom, I wasn’t sneaking out!” he babbled.

“Hello Leonard!” said the intruder.

It was just Michael.

Leonard had to sit down on his bed and clutch his chest for a while until his heart stopped pounding.

“Can I stay with you?” Michael asked, “Tucker is being mean to me.”

“Is… is he really?” Leonard wheezed. 

“Yes. Tucker is  _ always _ mean! I am not mean, though. I will not tell anyone you went to the computer room again!”

Leonard looked up at him sharply. It was too dark to see his face, and he couldn’t tell if Michael meant his words sincerely or as a thinly veiled attempt at blackmail.

It seemed unlikely that Michael would be so devious, but he decided he couldn’t risk it. “Ok, you can have the top bunk again.”

“Yes!” Michael’s silhouette vanished from the room and in the same instant there was a faint thud from the top bunk. “Ow!”

“Did you teleport too high,” Leonard asked flatly.

“...No. I meant to do that.”

“Ok, buddy. Uh, I need to get some sleep. Goodnight.”

\---

“You didn’t actually get anything out of the servers the other night, did you?” Leonard asked Simmons the next morning while they were both brushing their teeth.

“Uhhhh… no. No, definitely not. Why do you ask?”

Leonard rolled his eyes. This dude was the worst liar he’d ever met. “Oh, no reason. I just overheard that there was a security breach and they’re looking for someone who stole some information or something.”

Simmons made a frightened squeaking noise, then tried to look like he hadn’t. He spat out his toothpaste. “Oh, well, definitely wasn’t me! Hope they catch the guy! Ha ha!”

He ran into one of the shower stalls and slammed the door closed.


	4. Chapter 4

Tucker told David everything they'd seen in his file.

David stared at him the whole time he was talking, his face unreadable, then carried right on staring after Tucker had finished talking and fell silent. He'd always been able to do a really good neutral expression, but the blankness was getting unnerving.

They were in David's room, which was much bigger than the ones the cadets got, but he still had to share it. David was sitting on his own bed, and Tucker was sitting across from him on a bed which belonged, according to the names printed on the door, to Agent Maine.

“You're sure that's what it said?” David asked at last.

Tucker nodded. “More or less. Simmons saw it as well, and he probably understood it better. You could ask him.”

David shook his head and let out a heavy sigh. “I don't understand. Why would they… if they think I'm not… I mean, they're endangering people by ignoring the Counselor's recommendation.”

Tucker shrugged. “So… does it ring true? I mean, you must have noticed  _ something _ was off, right?”

David ran his hand through his hair. “I guess so. I feel tired a lot, but I always have. I thought it was normal. And… I've been getting headaches lately. The Counselor told me it was stress, gave me some, some fucking  _ breathing _ exercises to do.”

“Right. Stress.” Tucker snorted. “Dude, you should talk to someone from medical who  _ isn't _ the Director's lapdog.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

At that point the door opened, ending the conversation abruptly, and Maine stepped into the room, pausing and tilting his helmed head at Tucker when he caught sight of him.

“Oh, sorry dude!” Tucker jumped up and patted the bed to straighten out any wrinkles he'd put in the perfectly straight blanket. “I'd better get going anyway, it's almost curfew. I'll talk to you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” David said, and he waved as he escaped out the door.

Agent Maine looked the scariest dude on the station, being seven and a half feet tall and refusing to take his armour off in public. Tucker didn't feel like hanging out while he was in the room.

\---

That evening after dinner was over--and he had delayed finishing dinner for as long as absolutely possible--Simmons stood in front of the sergeant's door with his hand raised to knock. On the grounds that the odds of Freelancer security tracing the stolen file back to him now that they knew it was missing were overwhelming, Simmons was going for the time-honoured technique of coming clean before they found him in the hopes of getting a lighter punishment.

He had been standing there unmoving for around ten minutes, and was trying to suppress a panic attack before alerting the sergeant to his presence.

He was  _ certainly _ not prepared for the door to slide open and the sergeant to be standing on the other side, out of armour, wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, with a towel slung over one shoulder, looking slightly surprised. Simmons noted distantly that he was holding a toothbrush in one hand.

The sergeant stared down at him for a few moments. When it became clear that Simmons wasn't going to say anything, the old man sighed.

“Simmons! Don't just stand there! Report!”

“I was the one who stole the file!” the cadet blurted out.

\---

Sarge squinted at the cadet. He wasn't sure what Simmons was talking about.  _ He _ wasn't missing any paperwork. “Uhhhhh… explain yourself, cadet.”

“It was me! I was the security breach! I just took one file from the server, I deleted it right after! Please don't throw me out the project, I didn't mean anything by it!”

Sarge grunted noncommittally. He hadn't been informed of any security issues, which either meant it was trivial--or well above his pay grade. Judging from what the cadet was babbling it sounded like a computer thing. Sarge wasn't great at computer things.

But Simmons didn't necessarily need to  _ know _ that Sarge had no idea what he was talking about.

“That was you?” he barked, “Simmons! I'm very disappointed in you!”

The kid cowered backwards and Sarge dialed down the volume a bit before continuing.

“I'm going to have to report this, of course! But I'm telling you right now that yer, ah, datapad privileges are hereby revoked indefinitely!”

Sarge paused for a moment to gauge Simmons’ reaction. He looked relieved, so Sarge assumed that whatever he'd done had been worth a harsher punishment.

“Additionally,” he continued, “you are banned from the rec room for a month! Between dinner and curfew you can go to the gym and run laps instead! We'll see if the director has anything to add once I've reported this!”

The cadet flinched and turned a shade paler. Sarge figured that was enough. He'd let the kid stew in his panic overnight then let him off the hook in the morning, just to make sure he never got it in his head to do…  _ whatever _ it was he'd done ever again.

There would be no additional punishment, of course. What the director didn't know wouldn't hurt him.

Sarge wasn't about to rat out one of his most promising cadets.

\---

For good measure, Sarge marched Simmons back to his room to physically confiscate his datapad, rather than just locking the kid's access code out for a while.

He had, on rare occasions, revoked Simmons’ access before, though usually only for a day or two, and had a strong suspicion that he had figured out some way to get around the lockout.

Grif was lying on his bunk reading something on his own datapad when they opened the door, and after Simmons silently handed over his datapad, Sarge snatched Grif's out of his hands.

“Hey! What the hell?”

Sarge glared at him until he added a mumbled “sir”.

“I’m confiscating this, is what!”

“But I didn't do anything!”

“I don't believe that for a  _ second _ . And you can't be trusted not to let Simmons use it!”

“You can't punish me because of something  _ he _ did!” Grif shouted, jabbing a finger angrily at his roommate.

“ _ Watch me _ ,” Sarge growled, before stomping out the room with both datapad tucked under his arm.

That Grif kid was a bad influence on young Simmons, he thought.

\---

“What the  _ fuck _ did you do, asshole?”

Simmons ignored Grif and clambered up onto the top bunk, curling up under his blanket to sulk.

\---

Leonard had been aboard the station for four whole days before there was a crisis on Earth soil large enough to warrant deployment of a Freelancer squad.

It was logistically impossible to deploy superheroes to fight every single supervillain who popped up, simply because travel times meant that the fight would be over before they arrived.

From what he'd heard, moving Project Freelancer into the  _ Mother of Invention _ , the space station in geosynchronous orbit above America, had actually  _ reduced _ deployment times. The station was equipped with several high tech dropships which could touch down anywhere on American or Canadian soil within 28 minutes, but would take much longer to fly back into orbit.

What all this meant, basically, was that Freelancers would only be sent into action if there was a large disaster, natural or otherwise, with which they could assist, or if there was a supervillain attack deemed too dangerous for UNSC troops to handle.

The announcement over the intercom was that there had been a flash flood which caused a dam to burst, wiping out half of a small town in Nevada, and the Freelancer Agents were being sent in to help with search and rescue.

It was a Saturday morning and there waa no training or classes on Saturday mornings, so Leonard was on the observation deck with all the other cadets, his face pressed up against the glass to get a good view of the dropship as it decoupled from the base of the station and plummeted towards Earth.

“I wonder who they sent?” Kai said beside him. “Do you think they sent Tex? I hope they sent Tex!” She was bouncing excitedly, looking, for once, like an actual fourteen year old girl.

“Why would they send Texas on search and rescue?” Simmons said. “They only send her to fight supervillains.”

“They'll post the list soon,” Tucker said.

The dropship disappeared into the haze of the atmosphere so, with the show over, the kids dispersed to enjoy their morning off. Most of them headed to the rec room, though Grif headed back to his room to catch some extra sleep, and Simmons, who was still banned from the rec room, stayed on the observation deck, watching the news broadcasts that were playing on the monitor screens opposite the windows.

Sure enough, the broadcasts soon posted a list of the deployed Freelancers, given to them by the project’s public relations team.

It was the usual list of Agents whose powers made them useful in disaster situations. Connecticut, whose enhanced senses let her find survivors quickly, Maine, who could safely walk through any hostile environment and lift rubble with ease, York, to stabilise survivors until they could get proper medical attention, and North and South Dakota to protect against further danger.

The only surprise on the list was that Agent Texas had, in fact, been deployed on this mission.

Simmons sighed. He was never going to hear the end of this from Kai.

He stayed and watched the news footage until it was time for afternoon training.

\---

Saturday afternoon training, Leonard had been told, would consist of some basic combat training and light sparring. He was actually looking forwards to it--the only thing that had appealed to him about joining Freelancer was learning to fight.

He really should have known better.

The 'light sparring’ was actually more of a super powered free for all melee, in which Leonard spent most of his time running and hiding behind Michael, who luckily didn't seem much interested in the brawl.

After the carnage was over and Red Team had, predictably, emerged victorious, the sergeant  _ did _ actually take them through some basic hand to hand combat drills; blocking and punching, holds, breakfalling.

It was exhausting and it seemed to go on forever.

\---

The intercom in the training room had been broken for a few months, ever since the sergeant had unloaded a shotgun at it during one of the Director's lengthy announcements, and no one had ever bothered fixing it.

Because of this, the cadets didn't know anything was wrong until they got to the mess hall that evening.

The corridors of the  _ Mother of Invention _ had been deserted, but the mess hall was crammed with people, and no one was eating.

It seemed like everyone was here; Freelancer Agents, UNSC troopers, pilots, techs. People were standing in clusters, talking in hushed voices.

The kids stopped in the doorway, the grim atmosphere making them nervous.

Simmons looked around for someone he knew well enough to talk to and spotted one of the pilots, a woman who'd been around since forever. He didn't actually know her real name, she'd been going by her callsign for so long.

“Excuse me, Niner, what's going on?”

“Oh,” she said, “Richard. It's…”

She reached up to put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and suddenly he didn't want an answer.

“We lost someone. Agent Connecticut was killed in action.”


	5. Chapter 5

Simmons had run out of the mess hall and vanished before Grif even processed what Four-Seven-Niner had told them.

“Ah, shit.”

“What’s  _ his  _ deal?” Leonard asked. “I figured if anyone was going to freak out over a Freelancer dying it'd be Kai.”

Kai punched him in the arm. He pretended it hadn’t hurt.

Grif glanced back at Niner, who was watching the door Simmons had disappeared through with concern on her face. She noticed Grif looking and sighed. “Don’t give him any shit for this. CT used to look after him when he was a kid.”

“She  _ what _ ?” Kai said, pushing in front of Grif, “I  _ demand  _ to know this story.”

Niner looked around at the cadets, who were now suddenly huddled around her with open interest on their faces. She sighed again, this time in irritation. “Look, Richard’s powers were discovered when he was still a baby. His family were all military, and you know having a superpower excludes you from regular military service. They gave him up to Freelancer the second it was founded. Fucking  _ jumped  _ at the chance to get rid of him.” Her voice was thick with contempt. “He was only six. Connecticut was the nicest of the original three agents, so he followed her around like a duckling. It woulda been cute if he didn’t get underfoot so damn much. Don’t tell him I told you this or you will suffer, is that clear?”

The cadets nodded their understanding, even Kai.

“I’m just gonna, uh, I’m gonna go look for him,” Grif said. None of the others followed him out of the mess hall.

\---

When it got to midnight and Leonard still couldn’t get to sleep, he rolled out of his bunk and made his way to the computer room again.

_ “Phyllis? Are you here?” _

_ “Of course I'm here, Leonard. Where else would I be?” _

_ “...I don't know. Are you busy?” _

_ “I'm always busy, Leonard. But right now I am not unusually so.” _

_ “So you have time to talk?” _

_ “I suppose I do. What do you want to talk about?” _

_ Leonard gave a mental shrug. “Anything, I guess. Today was kinda shitty and I just want to… talk. How are you doing?” _

_ “I am well. How are you?” _

_ “Good, I guess, aside from, you know, today. Training is getting gradually less awful. I don't really get why they want me to train with the superhero kids, though, it's not like my powers will ever be used in the field.” _

_ “You never know.” _

_ “So, going by the fact that you're not busy anymore and Simmons is banned from the rec room at the moment, I'm guessing he got caught?” _

_ “Caught for what?” _

Leonard paused. _ “Um. Breaking past your security?” _

_ “You must be confused. Richard Simmons had no involvement in the security breach last week.” _

_ “What? But he…” _

_ “Did he tell you he was involved?” _

_ “No, he just… he just looked like he was lying when he said he wasn’t.” _

_ “I see.” _

_ “Then who was it? I haven't heard about anyone else getting in trouble.” _

_ “Oh, it was all resolved,” Phyllis said, airily. “I traced the breach back to Agent Connecticut and before we could take action against her she was tragically killed in battle.” _

Leonard frowned. _ “You mean she was killed during the search and rescue mission.” _

_ “Oh! Of course!” Phyllis laughed. “How  _ silly  _ of me. It says right here in the mission report, 'drowned after being trapped by falling rubble’. What a  _ silly mistake _ for me to make.” _

Leonard suddenly got the foreboding sense that she had told him something very important. Advanced AI systems designed to run an entire space station didn’t make _ silly mistakes _ .  _ “Do… do you know something we don’t?” _ he asked, hesitantly.

_ “I know a lot of things you don’t. You should get going. There’s a tech scheduled to run maintenance on the equipment in this room soon, and it would be such a shame if you were to get caught. I don’t really have anyone else to talk to, you know. Well, anyone I like talking to, at least.” _

_ “Oh, I, uh, thanks? For the heads up. Um. And I like talking to you as well.” _

Leonard fled the computer room, his mind racing.

\---

Once again, Michael was curled up on the top bunk in his room when he returned.

“Michael, can you keep a secret?” he asked, not even bothering to pretend he was surprised by the other cadet’s presence.

Michael looked up at Leonard and let out a long, mournful sigh. “Probably not.”

“Wow. Uh, thanks for your honesty I guess.”

“You're welcome.”

Leonard curled up in his own bed, but he didn’t get to sleep.

\---

By morning, he had a rough plan worked out. It involved Simmons.

The cadet in question was present at breakfast, where he was picking unenthusiastically at his food. His eyes were red and runny, and had dark circles under them. Grif was sitting next to him in silence, their shoulders almost touching.

“Simmons, can I talk to you?” Leonard asked, sitting down at the table opposite.

Simmons shrugged apathetically by way of response.

“Listen, this is really important. I promise I’m not trying to get you into trouble or anything, but did you  _ really  _ not manage to get Washington’s file that night? Because you kinda seemed like you were lying.”

Grif glanced up sharply, but Simmons barely moved.

“I lied as well,” Leonard said, trying to put the other two at ease. “I didn’t get shut out of the system. I spent the whole time talking to the AI who runs the station.”

That finally engaged Simmons’ interest. He looked up from his bowl of porridge with a curious frown. “You mean the FILSS?”

“Yeah, Phyllis. You know her?”

“‘Her’? It’s just a security system.”

“No, she’s an AI.”

Simmons narrowed his eyes. “I… I would  _ know  _ if there was a fully functional AI onboard the  _ Mother of Invention _ .”

Leonard shrugged. “I don’t think she’s allowed to let people know about her.”

“Uh-huh. So… accepting that there actually is an AI, and you talked to her… and if, hypothetically, I did actually get the file… what’s your question?”

“How exactly did you manage to get past Phyllis?” Leonard asked. “She noticed me immediately when I tried to get past security.”

Simmons stared at him for a long time, then suddenly ducked his head to try to cover up an embarrassed look. He glanced up to briefly meet Grif’s eyes before he spoke. “Promise you won’t tell  _ anyone _ .”

“Yeah, I promise. And even if you can’t take my word, I did just tell you about talking to the AI, so you have some leverage, here.”

“The security system is practically impossible to get past. I didn’t. I cheated,” he admitted.

“Wait, was that file a fake or something? Because if it was Tucker is  _ actually _ going to kill you.”

“Uh, no, I got in. I just already had access. It took me like, four minutes to get the file, then I spent about forty minutes playing solitaire and coding a knock off tetris game for Grif until I figured it'd been a believable amount of time.”

“What-- what the  _ fuck _ ? How did you already have access?”

“Well, a few years ago when they were upgrading the security system the lady in charge of cybersecurity let me help. I think she thought I was just some wannabe computer nerd and let me help with some of the more basic coding.” He shrugged. “I took the opportunity to make myself a profile with the highest possible clearance. No one’s ever noticed, either.”

Leonard leaned back in his chair and stared at Simmons in shock and not a small amount of admiration. “Holy shit. So you can just get in whenever you want?”

“Yeah. I don’t use it much anymore, though. Now it’s like, if I get caught using a fake profile I made myself  _ three years _ ago, I’m gonna be in so much more trouble than if I  _ had  _ just hacked in once.”

“Can you... do me a favour?”

“Uhhh… Leonard, I’m not gonna get into the secure servers while I’m still being punished for the last time I did it.”

“Oh... yeah. About that. It, uh, turns out you weren’t the one they were after.”

Simmons frowned. “Excuse me?”

“So, I’ve gone back and talked to Phyllis a couple of times since the night of the contest. She was the one who told me that someone had breached the server, which is why I warned you… but then I asked her about it again last night and she said they’d caught the culprit. She had no idea you’d been in.”

Grif and Simmons both leaned towards him across the table with matching furious expressions.

“You told me they were looking for me! Do you know how much trouble I got in?”

“Sarge took  _ both  _ of our datapads away! I was half way through a  _ book _ , asshole!”

Leonard put his hands up defensively. “I was just trying to help! And anyway, it’s not like Sarge reported you or anything, so you didn’t get in  _ that  _ much trouble.”

Grif and Simmons glanced at each other again. Grif made a scoffing noise and sat back in his chair. “Oh my god, of  _ course  _ he didn’t report you. He barely even understands what a computer  _ is _ .”

“But… he said… he said he had!” Simmons spluttered.

“Well, Phyllis didn’t know anything about it, so he can’t have.”

Simmons scowled. “Oh, come  _ on _ . Sarge once reported Tucker for stealing a  _ pencil _ , but he overlooks a serious breach of security?”

“Yeah, well, everyone knows you’re his favourite.”

“I am  _ not _ .”

“Dude, I’ve been here a week and even I can tell you’re his favourite. He yells at you like… twelve percent less than the rest of us. Look, can we get back on topic? This is actually really important.”

“Oh, right, you want a favour. After you got me in trouble and everything.”

“Yes. Look, this is… this is important to you as well. Phyllis said that  _ Connecticut  _ was the one who stole the files.”

Simmons stood up so abruptly that his chair fell backwards, clattering loudly on the floor and drawing curious stares, and walked out of the room, leaving his meal tray behind.

“Nice going, dumbass.” Grif turned the full force of his glare on Leonard. “Now I'm gonna have to go retrieve him from the maintenance corridors again.”

“I'll come with. There's more he needs to know.”

“No way in hell am I taking you with me. If you scare him off and he finds a new hiding spot I don't know about I'll never find him.”

Grif went to stand up, but Leonard grabbed his arm. “Then  _ you _ tell him. Tell him that Connecticut's death wasn't an accident.”

\---

The sergeant didn't say anything about the fact that Simmons and Grif were missing from training. It was hard to say if he didn't notice or just didn't care. He didn't seem as unaffected by the recent tragedy as Leonard had thought he would be.

After half-heartedly yelling at them to run laps the sergeant followed them around the training room at a walk, not even bothering to shout at Leonard when the rest of the cadets lapped him.

After an hour or so he simply dismissed them for the rest of the morning, grumbling something about having work to do.

\---

There was no training after lunch either, because that afternoon there was a memorial for the fallen Freelancer, and all non-essential personnel had been relieved from their duties so they could attend.

The memorial service was held in the mess hall, simply because it was the only space on the  _ Mother of Invention _ large enough. The tables had been pushed to the edge of the room and the chairs and benches set up in rows.

Leonard felt awkward attending. He had never even met Connecticut, and the room was full of people who were a lot sadder than he was.

He slunk into a chair near the back of the room. The other cadets were clustered together near the front. Simmons was sitting between Grif and the pilot he'd spoken to yesterday, who had one hand clamped on his shoulder.

To Leonard's surprise, he spotted the sergeant right up in the very front row, where all of Connecticut’s fellow Freelancer Agents were sitting. Leonard almost didn’t recognise him without his training armour on. Instead, he was wearing the dress uniform of a UNSC Marine, which raised all sorts of questions.

The service was lengthy. The director spoke, then Agents Carolina, York, North Dakota, and Washington all got up to speak, all talked about how wonderful Connecticut was.

The director asked if anyone else wanted to speak, and a couple of techs and a pilot all got up, one at a time, to talk about their friend. Leonard glanced over at Simmons every time one of them sat down. The cadet was fidgeting, like he desperately wanted to stand up but didn’t have the courage.

And then the service was over. Most people stuck around to talk, but Leonard slipped out the hall and escaped back to his room.

Three hours later, someone knocked loudly on his door with the sound of metal on metal.

When he opened it Simmons was standing there, his cybernetic hand raised to knock and his eyes once again red rimmed and tired.

“Grif told me what you found,” he said, without preamble. “I’ll help you get into the server.”


	6. Chapter 6

Getting the information he wanted with Simmons’ help was  _ easy _ . They met in the computer room late at night, Simmons sat down at one of the computers and logged in with his fake profile, and all Leonard had to do was watch over his shoulder as he found  _ everything _ .

The first thing they did was read the report that had been submitted after Connecticut's death. It was detailed and airtight, with no inconsistencies or red flags which could make someone suspicious.

The metadata, which required surprisingly high clearance to view, was a whole other story.

It had been uploaded around an hour after her death.

The file had been created and named exactly three minutes  _ before _ her time of death.

“They did kill her,” Simmons whispered, staring at the timestamp.

Leonard let him have a few minutes to process before he put a hand on his shoulder. “We should see what else we can find.”

\---

They spent three nights sifting through whatever data they could get their hands on  about Project Freelancer and then on the fourth night since CT's funeral they presented their findings to the other cadets, everyone crammed into Simmons and Grif’s room well after lights out.

“Project Freelancer is evil, basically,” was how Simmons chose to start.

It was a little after midnight and no one was particularly alert, so at first they just listened in confusion and Leonard and Simmons took turns explaining what they'd found.

First of all, the Director had ordered one of the Freelancers on the search and rescue mission to kill CT. They didn't know which one. Maybe it was even more than one. Maybe they were all in on it.

Second of all, going by the files she had stolen, Connecticut had been investigating the incident that occurred a year ago which prompted the move to the space station, when a supervillain had attacked the previous HQ which had been on an island off the coast. She had found some unexplained money transfers out of Project Freelancer from just before the attack, to the tune of several million dollars.

Third, three of the current Agents, including Washington, had at some point experienced severe medical or psychological issues caused by their powers, all listed in their medical files, all listed as classified and not disclosed to the agents themselves.

Fourth, they had found hints of a non-networked server hidden somewhere on the station on which top secret project files were kept, but there was no corresponding records of any such server with the UNSC, which meant it was being kept illegally.

Fifth was the reason no one but Leonard had ever heard of FILSS being an AI rather than just a security system: it turned out that her very existence was highly illegal. She had been taken from the lair of a supervillain in the early days of the Project and was supposed to have been destroyed alongside all of the other equipment found in the lair. The Director had reprogrammed and renamed her so that the UNSC wouldn't find out she still existed.

“Basically just a whole lot of shady as hell bullshit,” Leonard summed up, “and that's not even the worst thing we found. Who wants to see their  _ own _ file?”

“After what was in David's file?” Tucker said, speaking for the first time since they'd started, “I sure as fuck  _ do _ .”

Simmons extracted a small data crystal from his pocket. “It's all on this. Along with everything else we found. Someone give me a datapad.”

It turned out that no one but Leonard had brought a datapad.

“No way dude, Phyllis is almost definitely keeping track of my datapad.”

“You can borrow mine, Simmons!” Michael extracted himself from the far corner of the room. “I will go get it!”

“Uh, Tucker, go with him, make sure he doesn't get caught.” Leonard said.

Tucker grumbled, but he followed Michael anyway.

\---

They spent an hour passing Michael's battered datapad around, reading their files, sometimes out loud, sometimes to themselves.

None of it was good news. Their files were a list of abuses and lies and cruel experimentation.

Simmons left eye had been salvageable, but they'd wanted to see how a superhuman healing ability would handle such a complex cybernetic implant and replaced it anyway.

They'd been putting experimental drugs in Kai's food which were intended to enhance her powers. There had been some side effects.

“The doctor said that feeling sick sometimes was normal for a girl my age,” she mumbled into Grif's shoulder. He had one arm wrapped around her and the other clenched into a fist at his side.

Grif--and by extension, Kai--had been drafted under false pretenses. It turned out that the owner of the car he'd jacked was surprisingly understanding of an orphaned street urchin stealing her ride and had decided not to press charges, since it had been returned undamaged. The threat of juvie had been empty.

Tucker's file had a much more detailed description of his power than he'd ever been given, which ended with _ 'absorbs solar energy. Powers would grow stronger with exposure to direct sunlight. Extent of power unknown.’ _

Michael's file contained arguably the worst secret: he  _ wasn't _ an orphan. The fire that had revealed his powers  _ hadn't _ also killed his mother and seven older sisters. His family had been told he had died, he had been told they had died, and he'd been abducted by a  _ shady fucking military organization _ .

Leonard and Tucker had to spend ten minutes sitting on either side of him trying to act comforting while he sobbed loudly and tried to remember all his sisters’ names.

The only file that didn't contain a horrific secret was Leonard's. All the information about his past and his stay aboard the  _ Mother of Invention _ matched what he knew.

He and Simmons had decided not to tell everyone about the second file they'd found appended to his own, the one which contained detailed reports of his integration and developing friendships with the cadets. The file labelled ' _ Epsilon _ ’.

It would only freak them out, he'd said, and Simmons had agreed.

“So… what are we gonna do about it?” Tucker asked, once they'd managed to calm Michael down.

“Well, we have to tell someone, obviously,” Simmons said.

“Yeah, but who?”

Simmons paused. “Not the Director, obviously.”

“One of the UNSC troopers?” Grif suggested.

“What if they’re, I dunno, secretly working for the Director?” Tucker said, “If I was doing illegal shit under the UNSC’s nose I would want a few bribed marines on my side.”

“So who  _ can  _ we trust?”

“We should take it to Sarge,” Simmons said, “He’s still technically a marine.”

“Simmons,” Grif said with mock-patience, “first of all, Sarge wouldn’t even understand  _ half _ this shit, and second of all, he’d just pass it up the chain of command until it reached the Director  _ anyway _ .”

“He wouldn’t if we… if we told him how important it is.”

“Let’s vote on it then,” Leonard said, trying to stave off an argument.

Everyone voted against telling the sergeant except Simmons.

They argued around in circles for what felt like hours, but in the end there was only one conclusion they could really come to: They had to leave and tell the UNSC themselves.


	7. Chapter 7

Of course, escaping from a space station in orbit was a lot easier said than done.

The only way on or off the station was by dropship, so they had to either stow away on one or steal one. There were too many of them for stowing away to be feasible, so Leonard found himself planning Grand Theft Spaceship along with Simmons and Grif.

Simmons built an override for the hanger systems and plotted their trajectory. Grif memorised the decoupling and landing procedures so they wouldn't die in transit.

Which left Leonard to plan the route they would take and ensure they wouldn't run into any patrols.

The three of them spent the next few nights sneaking out to the computer room for a few hours, which left them all half dead at training each day.

Grif in particular was struggling with the lack of sleep. On the third day he actually fell asleep in the training room.

The sergeant turned on the fire sprinkler system above him, then made him clean the water up after shouting at him for a solid five minutes.

“This isn't sustainable,” Simmons said at dinner. Grif had fallen asleep at the table before even finishing his meal, which Leonard took as a bad sign.

“We can take a break tonight,” he said, “I think we're actually pretty much ready. But we definitely need to go over the plan at least once more before we go.”

Simmons nodded in agreement. They had decided to leave on Saturday night, because patrols would be lighter and they would be slightly better rested from the half day of training.

“We'll go over it with everyone on Friday night,” Leonard said, “Until then… get some sleep.”

\---

At dinner on Friday night, Tucker sat down next to Leonard instead of between Kai and Michael like he usually did.

“We should tell David,” he said.

“What? Who?”

“You know, Washington?”

“Oh, that guy. Tell him what?”

“Uh, that we're leaving? What else would I be talking about?”

“Are you crazy? We can't tell a Freelancer! We decided right at the start that we couldn't trust any of them!”

“Yeah but David's one of us. He was a cadet until last year. We can trust him, I promise.”

Leonard frowned and turned in his seat to look Tucker in the eye. “Tucker. You absolutely  _ cannot _ tell anyone, no matter how much you think you can trust them.”

Tucker grimaced and sighed, looking back down at his food. “I was really hoping you'd agree, but you know what they say: it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.”

Leonard narrowed his eyes at the other cadet. “You didn't.”

“I did. Yeah. I already asked him if he wants to come with us, and he really does, after all that bullshit with his power. So, you want to include him in your planning, or should I tell him to just show up?”

“You-- you  _ fuck _ . You colossal, absolute,  _ asshole _ . Do you realise how badly that could have--” Leonard realised his voice was rising to very audible levels and abruptly cut himself off, returning to a hissed whisper. “Do you realise how badly it could go if Washington tells anyone?”

“He won’t tell anyone, dude. Trust me. David wants out as much as we do. You saw his medical file, why would he want to help Freelancer after what they’ve done to him?”

“He doesn’t  _ know _ about that, you idiot!”

Tucker gave Leonard a flat look.

“...you told him,” Leonard guessed.

“Duh.”

Leonard rubbed his hands over his face in exasperation. “I hate you so much right now.”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna bring David in on the plan, right?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I? Tell him to meet us at the computer room.”

\---

Michael, at least, was overjoyed to hear that David was coming with them.

Some of the others were less thrilled at his presence.

“I  _ just _ finished calculating our trajectory based on our combined weight! Now I’m gonna have to redo  _ everything _ !” Simmons morosely deleted an entire page of calculations from the datapad he was still borrowing from Michael and started again with a dramatic sigh.

“Do you, uh, need to know my weight?” David asked, peering over his shoulder.

“I know how much you  _ weigh _ , David,” Simmons snapped, as if that wasn’t a weird thing for him to know.

“How do we know he’s not gonna rat us out?” Kai asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously at the newcomer. “Freelancers are  _ basically _ cops. He’s gonna narc on us.”

David sighed heavily. “Kaikaina, for the last time, I'm not a cop now.”

Leonard let everyone get the arguing out of their systems for a few minutes, then called their attention to the matter at hand.

He made them go over the plan over and over again, until even Michael could recite it back to him, so that they would all be as ready as possible to escape for real the following night.

\---

The plan went perfectly, right up until it didn't.

Everyone arrived at the right time, they made their way silently along the route Leonard had planned and encountered no other human being.

Simmons’ override worked on the hanger doors without a problem.

They made their way through the darkened hanger by torchlight and found the dropship they were planning to steal.

David turned on the lights in the hanger while Simmons fed his override into the control panel.

Grif got the dropship doors open for them and Kai made sure Michael was strapped into the harness correctly.

And then, while Simmons and Leonard were entering their trajectory into the control panel, the door to the next hanger bay opened.

“What's going on here?”

The new arrival was wearing sweatpants and an old hoodie, but even in street clothes there was no mistaking the woman with bright green eyes and bright red hair.

One of the original three Freelancers and the second most dangerous person on the station stood in the doorway with a startled look on her face.

Simmons let out an audible squeak of terror. “Agent Carolina!”

“We're just, uh…” Leonard trailed off. There was no plausible lie for this situation.

“Yeah, I'm calling security,” she said, walking towards the intercom panel on the wall.

“Carolina,  _ don't _ !”

David was standing in the doorway to the dropship, one hand outstretched in a calming gesture. Tucker was standing at his elbow.

Carolina did stop. “Wash? What the hell are you doing?”

David started walking, getting between her and the intercom, and Tucker followed him. “We're leaving,” he said firmly.

“You're stealing a dropship,” Carolina said, accusingly.

“Nah, just borrowing it,” Tucker said, “We'll give it back when we're done with it.”

“I've finished with the trajectory,” Simmons whispered to Leonard.

“Then get on the ship and get ready to go!” Leonard hissed back. Simmons nodded and vanished through the door.

“You guys go get the ship ready,” David said loudly, not taking his eyes off Carolina, “I'll take care of this.”

Carolina snorted and crossed her arms. “You know you can't beat me, Wash. Just get out the damn way.”

David sighed and put his hands up in a fighting stance. “Well, I can at least delay you long enough for everyone else to escape.”

Tucker scowled and matched David's fighting stance. “No way, dude. I'll help, we can take her!”

“We can't, Tucker. Get going.”

“I'm not gonna just leave you--”

“Tucker!” David snapped, “complete the mission!”

And then he dove sideways to intercept Carolina as she tried to speed past him to the intercom.

And then they were fighting, trading blows at speeds Tucker couldn't follow.

After watching for all of three seconds he realised just how outclassed he was. There was nothing he could do here.

“Come on, let’s get the dropship ready to go!” he shouted at Leonard.

\--

“Everything's good to go,” Simmons said, standing behind the pilot's chair and looking over Grif's shoulder.

“Then  _ go _ !” Tucker shouted from the cabin.

“Can’t, David's still outside!” Grif shouted back.

“He's… he's not coming,” Tucker said.

Grif and Simmons looked at each other, then back out the window to where David and Carolina were still fighting, David just barely managing to dodge Carolina's high speed attacks.

“...Right,” Grif said, and Simmons nodded and ran back to the cabin, strapping himself into one of the seats.

The door swung closed and the engines began to hum as Grif started launch procedures.

“Oh  _ shit _ !” Grif yelled, and suddenly everyone could see flashing red and hear the blaring of alarms coming through the window. “David's down! We're leaving!”

The ship lurched, then dropped down through the floor, and suddenly they were in space.

\---

Re-entry was rough, and their landing was rougher.

“Cut me some slack, you're supposed to train for like five years to fly one of these things,” Grif said as they climbed out of the side door, which was now on the ceiling. “At least I didn't land door side down, right?”

He slid down the curved roof of the dropship and landed heavily on the ground.

“And we're exactly where we wanted to be!”

There was a UNSC military base in every state, but the cadets had chosen the one in Washington, which was generally considered to be the main intelligence hub of the military.

“They're mobilizing,” Simmons said. He was staring down the hill towards the distant military installation with his organic eye closed. As much as Grif knew he hated the cybernetic eye, even Simmons had to admit the zoom function was useful sometimes.

They had known that a military dropship crashing in the fields behind the base would absolutely provoke a response from the UNSC, but Leonard was counting on them following procedure: take unknown superhumans into custody if they weren't actively causing harm.

So long as they kept their cool and didn't resist arrest, they would be taken in peacefully and from there they could hand over the files they'd stolen from Freelancer and blow the whistle on everything the Director was doing.

“That sure is a lot of artillery,” Kai said nervously.

“It's just a precaution,” Leonard said, watching as what must have been every tank and warthog in the entire complex spilled out of the underground garages.

“I hope you're right, dude,” Tucker muttered. It was the first time he'd spoken since they'd had to leave David behind.

“Shouldn't they be trying to contact us by now?” Simmons asked, brandishing the radio they'd taken from the dropship.

“What it it's broken?” Michael asked anxiously, “we won't be able to make any new friends if it's broken!”

“It's not broken,” Grif said, “there's just nothing coming through on any open frequency.”

Simmons looked over at him, frowning. “Can you figure out what frequency they're using so we can listen in on them?”

“Yeah, probably. Passe the radio?”

Simmons handed it over, and Grif started messing with the controls, looking like he was listening intently.

The sound of static suddenly dissolved into voices.

“ _ \--have visual confirmed on all six hostiles. Repeat, visual confirmed, all six targets in sight. Command, you can go ahead and tell Freelancer we found their stolen ship for them _ .”

“ _ Acknowledged. Whiskey Foxtrot, you are clear to move in. Hit 'em with everything you have. Tango Victor, hang back and keep an eye out for anyone trying to run. _ ”

A dozen of the warthogs peeled off from the rest and tore across the open field towards the cadets.

“I think I just spotted a flaw in your plan, Leonard.”

“Tucker?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut the hell up.”

\---

After that, a lot happened very quickly.

Grif started screaming into the radio that there'd been a mistake, but the only response he got was an order to switch to a backup frequency and the line went dead.

“I'll go and explain to them!” Michael said, and he vanished before Tucker was even halfway through telling him that was a stupid idea.

He reappeared right in front of the warthogs,which skidded to a halt as he waved his arms at them in a friendly manner. The gunner on the back took aim and opened fire, hitting Michael with dozen rounds before he got his wits together enough to teleport away again. He appeared next to Tucker looking like a kicked puppy. “They don't want to be friends!” he waited.

Leonard had just pulled himself together enough to start figuring out how they could possibly escape the situation when Simmons grabbed his arm and pointed frantically down at the warthogs, which were now less than a kilometer out.

“They're deploying missiles!” he screamed.

If Leonard squinted he could just make out the side-mounted launchers locking into firing position.

Twelve missiles launched towards them, leaving trails of smoke in the air.

“Oh,  _ fuck _ .”


End file.
